The educational attainment profile of the future global labour force

Bilal Barakat, Vienna Institute of Demography
Samir KC, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Anne Goujon, Vienna Institute of Demography and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

The ability of developing economies to embark on a sustained growth trajectory depends crucially on the profile of their labour force. Formal educational attainment is the most readily available measure of the workig population's skill. Based on a new data-set of age- and sex-specific education levels in 120 countries, our study team succeeded in obtaining quantitative parameter estimates for this relationship between educational attainment and economic growth (see attached document). The present study goes further by applying these insights to the age- and sex-specific future population structure of these countries, obtained by multi-state population projection. This allows us to draw important conclusions on which countries are likely to succeed or fail in achieving a high-skills profile in their labour force to coincide with their demographic window of opportunity of low dependency ratios, and more generally, to discuss the contribution of labour force qualifications to future economic growth.